Would you send a sick child to school? Me neither

Guest post by Linda Jones

I've been scratching my head this morning - again. I'm quite often perplexed, baffled or incredulous -- and this is very likely to have been brought on by news of yet another survey connected with working mums. According to the media, you could think of many of society's ills and you would have to look no further than a mother attempting to hold down a job as well as raise a child for the cause.

Obesity, rioting, laziness, you name it, there's probably a poll somewhere that says working mothers (especially single ones of course) are to blame.  There's no mention of the dad of the household. Perhaps he is completely oblivious or blame-free, who knows? Whatever the reason, the papers don't tend to mention him, whether he has scarpered or not.

This week has brought a new stick to beat working mothers with - apparently we are forcing (yes forcing) our sick children to school. Never mind that if that ever happens it's because of inflexible bosses, unrealistic demands at work, stress or lack of support. No, it's the mums who are to blame. As ever, the dads are invisible in this picture.

Many working mothers in Britain send off their children to school despite sickness because they are unable to take time off looking after them, a study is reported to have found.

Researchers revealed some four out of ten employed mums have sent their child to school when he or she wasn't feeling well because they felt unable to take the day off. And according to news articles about this latest finding, a "staggering" 80 per cent of mothers participating in the study said people don't understand how hard it is to juggle things when a child falls ill.

And 23 per cent of mums in the poll of 2,000 from Haliborange said they would rather send their sick child to school and receive a phone call to collect them than automatically take the day off.

The study also found around one in six mothers have been made to feel 'guilty' by their boss after taking time off to look after a poorly child.

Twenty- seven per cent of the working mums polled said they were worried of losing their job if they took too much time off for child care.

One in five mums said they felt guilty handing over work to colleagues whenever their child falls ill during a shift. One of ten of the 2,000 working mums polled said they had received a written warning.

The statistics emerged following a study carried out by supplement brand Haliborange.

Spokeswoman Susanne Wright said: "Taking extra days off in term time can be a real struggle especially in the current economic climate when people may be worried about their job security."

About one fourth of the women said they worried about their work load when they suddenly have to drop everything to collect a sick child from school.

The following statistic also emerged. Tell us something we didn't know:

Despite this, 86 per cent of the females polled admitted that sick kids need their mothers around more than anyone.

For me, this survey has been a little more perplexing than most - mums are reported to worry about their bosses' reaction if they take time off for a little one being ill, and worry about workload caused when they drop everything to bring a poorly child home. The actual number saying they 'force' kids to school when ill is four in ten, so six in ten don't.  

I've never forced my children to school when sick and am pretty sure that I don't know anyone else has done that either. I've worked hard and made lots of sacrifices (mainly career-related or financial) to work flexibly so that if my daughters are ill, I can be there for them. I'm willing to bet thousands of other women do the same.

But nobody in these polls ever asks me. Perhaps the true picture - of mums just doing the best they can - whether they work full-time, part time, stay at home or run their own business -- is just a lot more boring.

What do you think?

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Comments

[Kim Nash]

The pressure on Mom's is unbelievable really as it is normally the Mom who is required to take time off work. Perhaps they should do a poll of Dad's asking what they would do if their child was ill? Those results would be interesting wouldn't they?

I am incredibly fortunate to have both a fantastic childminder, who I know has had Oliver for me as long as his illness wouldn't affect any other kids and I also have the most understanding bosses who know how hard it is to work and bring up children and know that they would either allow me to work from home or bring him into work. We've had many a meeting with a child on the sofa with us at work.

Bosses should be more understanding, but employees should also be in a position where they don't take the mickey and have the day off just because someone has a sniffle.

I also think that kids need to realise that they can't have the day off school just because they feel a little ill so for me to give a child the day off sick, they would have to be quite poorly. If that makes me sound really hard, then so be it. Unless they were really poorly, I'd rather them try to go to school then get a call to say that they're not well, as some kids will have a tendency to think that their mom is a pushover and they only have to say that they feel unwell and they get a day off.

Oooh, I'm getting on my soapbox now! I don't remember having many days off school sick when I was a child. My parents brought me up with a good work ethic and I'm not the sort of person who would take a day off because I feel a little unwell. I would have to be very poorly to need a day off work sick and I'm certainly trying to make sure that my son is brought up the same way.

I can see both sides of the argument as when a job needs to be done, who else is going to do it if you're not around? If it's something urgent, then someone else may end up covering your work for you and working twice as hard to do something that is totally out of their control and that seems a little unfair really!

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